A dozen pre-schoolers listen attentively as Michelle Sevigny
reads them a story about dinosaurs. Sevigny wiggles some finger
puppets, eliciting giggles from her young audience.

Sevigny, a UConn sophomore, is in Hartford's Kinsella elementary
school, where she spends two hours once a week to help children
develop a love of reading. She is a volunteer reading tutor,
one of 40 undergraduates who volunteer for UConn's America Reads
Preschool Reading Corps. An active chapter of the National America
Reads Challenge, President Clinton's response to America's need
for improved early literacy, the corps hopes to ensure that
children can read well and independently by the end of third
grade.

"I try to pick books that are encouraging for them," Sevigny
says. "One book I read is called I Can."

Sevigny loves tutoring. "I'm providing a positive role model
for them. They look forward to seeing me." Another day, she
helps the children make get-well cards for a classmate in the
hospital.

The Reading Corps pairs trained UConn undergraduates with elementary
schools and early childhood programs in local communities to
help children prepare for reading. Tutors now volunteer at 15
Connecticut sites, including community or home daycare centers
and pre-kindergarten programs in public schools in Mansfield,
Windham, Willington, Columbia and Hartford. The average tutor
teaches about four hours a week, in two-hour blocks.

"We want children to develop a love of reading and a love of
books," says Laura Conway Palumbo, who coordinates UConn's America
Reads Preschool Reading Corps program. "We want to inspire them
to become readers." Palumbo is an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer,
serving a 12-month appointment at the Center for Community Outreach.
Her role is to develop and sustain literacy programs for children
and families.

"I get to apply my advanced degree in a very concrete way to
create new opportunities for children," says Palumbo, who earned
a Ph.D. in linguistics from UConn.

Palumbo works with Charlotte Madison, director of the Child
Development Laboratories at UConn and one of the founders of
the Reading Corps at UConn, to train students in early literacy
development and techniques for reading with children.

The volunteers work with teachers or daycare providers to develop
activities that increase the opportunities for children to read
and be read to, to speak, and to practice early skills that
precede writing. Many of the sites serve children from low-income
families or those who speak English as a second language.

The tutor's relationship with a child also boosts his or her
self-esteem, helping the child become a confident reader, Palumbo
says.

The program has expanded from 10 sites last year. Palumbo says
some schools in Hartford have expressed interest in having tutors
for first through third grades as well.

The Reading Corps is a joint effort of UConn's Center for Community
Outreach, the Student Employment Office, the School of Family
Studies' Child Development Laboratories, and the Mansfield Public Library.
The program is part of UConn's Year of Reading, inaugurated
in conjunction with the rededication of Homer Babbidge
Library to serve as the umbrella for a variety of campus activities that
promote literacy.